Fortunes of Asgard: A Belated Entry to a Bloated Marketplace

Daniel Wilson

June 1, 2018

Last week we reviewed another Asgardian slot called Legend of Loki. In that review, we essentially crowned it the most boring Norse slot we’d seen in a long time (and noted it was a million miles from the dynamic and exciting Asgardian Stones by Netent) – well, we may have to eat our words and now admit that Fortunes of Asgard is, incredibly, considerably less interesting than Legend of Loki.

From start to finish, this game offers nothing to the player. The wins are infrequent, the win amounts are pitiful, and we triggered the 10 free spins round during testing: once, we got 3x total, the other time 5x. Neither time did we access a bonus feature.

We’ll continue on with the review, but we’re not sure whether we’ll have anything positive to say at all…

Theme

It’s meant to be about Thor and his evil sister Helia, and a battle between the two – a battle during which you collect big pockets full of cash.

Gameplay & Layout

At the outset of the game, you have to choose your protagonist: Thor or Helia. With Thor, if you land his symbol adjacent to his mighty hammer Mjolnir, then he expands to become a full-reel wild. If you choose Helia, and she lands adjacent to her book of spells, this activates one sticky wild for a single spin. Neither of these are particularly strong bonus elements.

The symbols are largely made up of playing cards (10-A) with a few shields, hammers, books, wilds, and scatters occasionally thrown in to the mix. The game is billed as a 96% RTP, it honestly it plays like a 30% RTP – out of every 50 spin, fewer than 5 seem to pay, and the amount is always a trickle.

When players do manage a win of 5x or more, you’re required to hit an additional button to keep playing, rather than just continuing to spin.

The reel design is incredibly basic, with Thor looking more like a chubby baker than a legendary Norse warrior. The animation is slow (you can double-click the spin button to speed things up) and, to reiterate, wins are extremely scarce without the benefit of high-value payouts.

Special Bonus Features

There are two bonus rounds available: Pick a Bonus and Free Spins.

Pick a Bonus

This round is triggered by landing the special “bonus” symbol on reels 1, 3, and 5 simultaneously. Theoretically players could win up to 39x their original stake, if they pick all of the prizes before finding the “Collect” signal.

Free Spins

If a player can get 3+ scatters on a single spin, they will unlock the free spins round. Here, both the Thor and Helia bonuses are active. Unfortunately, these did not once activate during our testing, and the free spins round never returned more than 5x to us. We get the impression this wasn’t a one-off occurrence, either, since the game just doesn’t pay out.

Our Verdict

You can probably guess, but we were not impressed by this latest Microgaming effort. They’re getting other developers to create their games, and those developers clearly lack the imagination and creativity to keep up with beautiful slots from the likes of Netent and Yggdrasil. We expect better from Microgaming, and hope we’ll see it in the near future!